1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data storage. Particularly, this invention relates to managing efficient storage of data objects related to a workflow model.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the information-driven society today, organizations are collecting and accumulating more data than ever before. Properly storing the huge amounts of resulting data can be both expensive and complicated. In practice, the stored data have differing storage requirements and value to the organization. If each data object, such as a file, were to be handled in accordance with its requirements and value to the organization, the cost and complexity of retaining the data would be significantly reduced.
The key challenge lies in determining the requirements and value of the objects. Traditional Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) approaches rely on the access history of the objects, but such management is not very effective, especially for large archival systems where the accesses do not exhibit much locality of reference. Another approach infers the likelihood that an object will be accessed based on metadata characteristics such as the type of object, who created the object, when it was created and other metrics. This also has limited effectiveness. Another proposal is to have the user or some other external entity (such as an associated business process) specify the value of each of the objects. The external entity, however, typically has neither such knowledge nor the wherewithal to do so. Some techniques for data storage management have been developed.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0117315 A1 by Bussert et al., published Jun. 1, 2006, discloses a help system, automation device with a help system and method for providing help data. The invention relates to a help system. The help system comprises a first help facility which is preferably installed as part of an application on a data processing device, the first help facility providing a user with help data on the basis of context data defined by the user, in particular on the basis of search terms, said help data being stored in the first help facility and thus on the data processing device. A second help facility is provided according to the invention, which is accessed by the data processing device preferably via the internet such that the context data defined by the user in relation to the first help facility is automatically adopted in the second help facility as context data, the second help facility providing the user with additional help data based on this context data, said help data being stored in the second help facility.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0036566 by Simske et al., published Feb. 16, 2006, discloses systems, methods, and programs embodied in a computer readable medium for index extraction. An extraction of a plurality of sets of indices from a document in a server is implemented using a plurality of indexing entities. Each set of indices is extracted using a corresponding one of the indexing entities. Attempts are made to obtain a composite set of indices from the sets of indices extracted. The composite set of indices is associated with the document if the composite set of indices is successfully obtained from the sets of indices.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0210063 by Koenig, published Sep. 22, 2005, discloses a data structure for storing data including a number of files which each have a file header and a file body. The file header of a respective file contains general information with respect to the respective content of the respective file body of the respective file. Further, the file header of a respective first file additionally contains context information with respect to at least one further file, the file body of which exhibits a material reference to the content of the file body of the respective first file. The file structure and a method are proposed for creating and storing a file which allow an observer to determine in a particularly simple manner the volume and content of the information relevant for the file.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0197885 by Tam et al., published Sep. 8, 2005, discloses a system and method for allowing users to participate in a campaign, preferably using SMS messaging. The system includes a first layer configured to receive information from a user via a user interface, a second layer configured to extract data relevant to the campaign from the information received by the first layer, and a third layer configured to compare the extracted data to requirements of the campaign and, if the extracted data complies with the requirements of the campaign, to store the extracted data in a database associated with the campaign.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0177541 by Wright et al., published Aug. 11, 2005, discloses a system and method which allows users to track and manage the information gathered during the life of a project. The invention uses a novel method and system for tracking changes to processes within a project. A statistical analysis is done on the changes and the statistical information is merged with the existing process information to create a new version of the process. The information is then stored in a process library. As the new processes are used, the information stored is more accurate based on the previous analysis.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,973,616 B1 by Cottrille et al., issued Dec. 6, 2005, discloses a computing system capable of associating annotations with millions of content sources is described. An annotation is any content associated with a document space. The document space is any document identified by a document identifier. The document space provides the context for the annotation. An annotation is represented as an object having a plurality of properties. The annotation is associated with a content source using a document identifier property. The document identifier property identifies the content source with which the annotation is associated. A scalable computing system for managing annotations responds to requests for presenting annotations to millions of documents a day. The computing system consists of multiple tiers of servers. A tier I server indicates whether there are annotations associated with a content source. A tier II server provides an index to the body of the annotations. A tier III server provides the body of the annotation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,320 by Odom et al., issued Feb. 4, 2003, discloses a memory for access by a program being executed by a programmable control device includes a data access structure stored in the memory, the data access structure including a first and a second index structure (each having a plurality of entries) together forming a tiered index. At least one entry in the first structure indicates an entry in the second structure. The number of entries in the second structure is dynamically changeable. A method for building a tiered index structure includes building a first-level index structure having a predetermined number of entries, building a second-level index structure having a dynamic number of entries, and establishing a link between an entry in the first-level index structure and an entry in the second level index structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,314 by Gifford et al., issued Apr. 5, 1994, discloses a computer-aided customer support system is described for rapidly retrieving stored documents useful in answering customer inquiries. A hierarchical index tree is used in which an indexing document is referenced at each level as the search proceeds down through the various tiers. Once the targeted document is retrieved and reviewed, the user is interrogated by the system as to the usefulness of the document in solving the customer's inquiry. Based on the response to this interrogation, the usefulness priority and location of this document within the tree structure are reevaluated.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,200 by Eager et al., issued Sep. 28, 1999, discloses that an automated system transitions an entire enterprise to a distributed infrastructure. The system includes a process for organizing and managing the transition, a multi-tiered client/server architecture that adheres to open systems standards, a system to automate the transition of existing applications to this architecture, and a system to enable the creation or modification of applications based on this architecture.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,861 by Diamant et al., issued Jun. 25, 1996, discloses a task manager for providing personal organization, project management, and process automation capabilities. The task manager maintains a hierarchical list of tasks for an individual. For each task, notes can be kept, priorities set, and progress tracked. Also, subsets of the task hierarchy can be shared. Every task in the task manager belongs to a class, and each class includes pre-defined automatic actions and manual actions. The pre-defined automatic actions are automatically executed by the task manager when the task is being worked on. The manual actions aid in task execution because the relevant operations (that is, the manual actions) are available when the task is being worked on. The task manager communicates with agents, tools, and process engines via a message system. The agents, tools, and process engine may receive task information from the task manager and may also remotely control the task manager.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for systems and methods to effectively determine the requirements and importance of a data object, such as a file or document, and to manage the object according to its determined requirements and importance. There is further a need for such systems and methods to operate such that the importance of an object includes the likelihood that it will be used in the near future, or the value that it can bring to an organization. These and other needs are met by the present invention as detailed hereafter.